


Canterbury

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blindness, Established Relationship, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7067845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins in the middle of an admin meeting.</p><p>
  <em>Your office.  Canterbury.</em>
</p><p>Q's never run so fast for the lifts.</p><p>(Or, the one where Bond's going blind, and neither Bond nor Q has been so good at communicating their feelings.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Canterbury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CONNI4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CONNI4/gifts).



It starts in the middle of an admin meeting.Q sits, doing his best not to fidget, between two old men who’ve probably been with Six longer than Q’s been alive.The meeting itself is a sleepy 1400 affair, with tea and coffee on a side table and sun streaming in from the half-open shutters.Q stares at the dust motes as they float through the light, far more transfixed by their slow passage than by anything that’s being said.Around Q, department chairs and other notable personages within Six sit around an oval table, discussing the latest news.There isn’t much of interest, though.Q’s quite sure the Chief of Medical is falling asleep in his chair.

Q’s mobile _pings_ quite loudly, and it begins.

As soon as the sound goes off, everyone’s wide awake and staring directly at him.Q has the grace not to blush.He always silences his mobile when he goes to meetings—and it is silenced, he knows that, he checked it fifteen times before he sat down—but emergency contacts bypass the settings entirely.

Bond, then.

“Apologies,” Q says, standing.He collects his tablet, overly aware of every pair of eyes that have settled on him, wondering what’s just happened.Q looks to M, who nods once without speaking.It’s permission more than anything; M’s the only one who knows that it’s Bond.“I have to take this.”

There’s a faint murmur around the table, and Q makes his way to the door as quickly as he’s able, sure that rumors will be circulating within the hour, assuming M doesn’t contain the collective curiosity for him.Q hopes he will.They’ve established a healthy rapport.

Q doesn’t check his screen until he’s in the hallway for fear of what he might find.Bond’s never texted him during a meeting.It’s one of their well-defined rules—their relationship doesn’t and cannot interfere with work.Bond is a double-0 agent, someone for whom attachments are difficult.Q has to lead an entire department under the intense scrutiny of not only M, but those above him.There are lines that cannot be crossed.

Q scans the single text once he’s sure there’s no one around to see his reaction. _Your office.Canterbury._

Q’s never heard Bond use their mutual safeword before.He’s also never run so fast for the lift.

* * *

The ride down, short as it is, is slow enough for Q to run through several scenarios.  By the end of it, Q’s sure he’s about to lose his partner.

 _Partner_ , because they each had reservations about getting married.Or, was it Q who voiced his concerns, and did Bond just go along with it?Is that the problem?

Maybe not.Probably not—that’s not something urgent.Maybe Bond’s just badly hurt—but then why text Q?Why go to his office?He can’t be hurt.

No.It’s not an injury.It has to be something else.

Q really doesn’t want to know what that _something else_ is, if only because he suspects the worst.They haven’t been doing so well lately.Bond’s been irritable and Q’s been drowning in work, what with 008 and 009 aging out of the programme simultaneously, the drastic increase in violent and unmanageable crime around the globe, and increasing pressures from the top for Five and Six to merge.Two weeks ago, Bond returned from a five month stint abroad in Azerbaijan, during which they had hardly spoken.Q and Bond had never been a very traditional couple, but…

But.Q hadn’t wanted to put a word on what it had been.He still doesn’t.Now, it’s the only thing he can think of.

 _He’s going to leave me_ , Q thinks as he walks the floor to his office.The quartermasters are working diligently, but Q can tell that they were recently interrupted by how they behave: they’re tittering, trying to work but clearly staring at Q as he marches to his office.Whatever they have seen or heard isn’t good.

 _This is it_ , Q thinks, miserable.Half of him wishes he’d stayed in the department meeting.He wishes Bond had just left him without a word, without so much as a backwards glance.

He’s at the door to his own office, then.He can see by the keypad that Bond’s used his administrator override to bypass the locks.

Q swallows and hesitates.Bond’s bypassed all of his defenses, both physical and emotional.He knows that Bond can’t be in there waiting to break up with him—it’s not logical, it doesn’t make sense, he wouldn’t do this now, would he?—but Bond brings this out in him.Q expects everything and nothing and while Bond has never hurt him, he’s always been braced for a change.

Q steels himself and opens the door.

His office is dark.Q wonders is this is some sort of elaborate prank.He half-believes that Bond _has_ left him and this is his sick version of good-bye—that he’s simply gone, that he’s led Q down here just to let him know—but no.Bond shifts in the darkness.He sits on Q’s couch, an ugly sleeper sofa Q’s slept on more in the past two weeks than he has his own bed. _Their bed_ , really, though it’s hardly felt like it without either of them in it.

“Close the door,” Bond says.His voice is hoarse and low.Q complies without a word.Without the light from the floor, the office is dark.

“Q,” Bond says.

“James,” Q says.He wishes he didn’t sound so breathless, so afraid.“I came as soon as—”

“Q,” Bond says, and Q shuts his mouth.“I’m going blind.”

There’s a terrible moment when Q thinks he’s going to laugh.It’s no laughing matter, but it’s— Q swallows and blinks through the darkness.Bond’s little more than a fuzzy outline in front of him.

“James,” Q says.“What happened?”

There’s a quick movement.Q doesn’t see it, but he hears it: the springs in the sofa bed shift as Bond does, his shirt pulls, the skin of his fingers slides across that of his palms.Q swallows again, his pulse ratcheting steadily upward.

Bond remains where he is, though Q thinks he might sink into the sofa just a touch.For his part, Q doesn’t think he could move if the world depended on it.

“We need to talk,” Bond says finally.

* * *

There’s a surreal quality to Q’s thoughts as Bond speaks, explaining what has happened.  Q doesn’t feel as though he’s standing in his office.  Instead, he’s in Medical—it has to be Medical, this has to be fake.  Q sees himself standing in one of the private rooms in a white lab coat, a clipboard in his hands, except there aren’t any forms, just blank paper on which he writes down everything Bond is saying.

_Azerbaijan.Accident.Six weeks ago._

Bond’s there, too, in that room.He sits on the examination table, posture rigid, looking at Q as he talks, but Q can’t see his face, it’s shadowed, shifting, blurry—

Q realizes he has to sit down but he can’t.If he sits, Bond will stop talking.He knows this.

 _Didn’t want you to worry_. _Didn’t know how to tell you._

Q thinks he’s going to be sick.

 _Inoperable_.

* * *

Q isn’t sick.

In the darkness of his office, it’s impossible to see Bond’s face.Q thought his eyes would have adjusted by now, but they haven’t, though that just might be the shock.Q would laugh if it weren’t so serious.He would laugh if he didn’t think he would cry.

Bond sits in silence, waiting for Q to respond, to say anything at all, as if there’s something Q can say or do to make this any better.

“James,” Q says, hoping it says everything he wants to say but can’t— _I’m sorry_ and _oh my God_ and _why didn’t you tell me_ and _I don’t know what to say_.

Bond is going blind.He’s been to every specialist he could find in order to reach a solution, but there isn’t one.Bond is going blind, it started six weeks ago, and his eyesight is getting worse with each passing day.

Q finally sits down.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Bond says finally, speaking through the dark.He’s said that already.“Yesterday, when you left, I could hardly see you.”

Q tries to speak, fails, then tries again.“I’m sorry,” he says.“I was so short with you, I didn’t—”

“It’s not your fault.You didn’t know.”

Q should have known.“Have you been to Medical?”

“Yes,” Bond says simply.It’s obvious, and Q knows it.He thinks of the Chief of Medical, sitting upstairs, falling asleep in his seat.Rage wells in him.Why isn’t he working?Why isn’t he researching, trying everything— “There’s nothing to do,” Bond says, reading his mind.

“No,” Q says.It sounds small, so he says it again.“No.There has to be something.”

Bond’s very quiet now, which tells Q more than he thinks Bond means it to.Q has learned to read Bond’s silences.He knows when there’s more that Bond isn’t saying.He’s outright denied it— _inoperable_ —but this silence tells Q all he needs to know.

“There is, isn’t there,” Q says quietly.

“Q.”

“There is.”

Bond breathes in and out loudly.It’s a practiced gesture, one that he developed after they moved in together, after their first big fight.He hadn’t had any real cues before that and it had nearly ruined them before they’d even gotten started.

“Yes,” he says.“When I went to Medical, they called in a surgeon who was willing to operate.”Q waits, sure that Bond will tell him why he failed to mention this sooner.“The survival rate was an optimistic 15%.”

Q feels himself sinking into his office chair, the dark closing in around him like something tangible.Bond is going blind, but Q feels just as lost, unsure of what to say or do.

“Have you told M?” Q asks finally.

“Yes.”

Q thinks of M sitting upstairs, of the look he gave him when he left.Q bends over, resting his forehead against his kneecaps as if he were a child again.So much for rapport.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Bond says.It’s the third timehe’s said it. _You’ve been distant, I didn’t know if you would care—_ those are what Q hears.His head swims.

 _This isn’t about me_ , Q forces himself to think.The words feel heavy and false in his head, but it’s true.Bond’s the one going blind.Their relationship, or lack thereof lately, is secondary.

“What can I do?” Q asks.“Whatever it is, whatever you need…”

“I don’t know,” Bond says.

“Okay,” Q says.He says it because he has to, but it isn’t okay.Q’s fingers itch to do something, anything, to salvage this wreck.This couldn’t be real—

“You can be honest with me,” Bond says suddenly.

“What?”

“I won’t be able to work in the field anymore,” Bond says.He masks it well, but Q can hear the resentment in his voice.He’s furious, but he’s trying hard not to direct it at Q.“I won’t be able to drive.I won’t be able to do— This isn’t what you signed up for.”

“What I signed up for?” Q asks.“You sign up for a job, not a relationship, James.”

Bond’s sigh is exasperated and short.“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know damn well what you meant,” Q says.

“I wouldn’t blame you for leaving,” Bond says, his voice so soft in the dark.

“You think I’ll stop loving you because you’re going blind?”

Bond takes so long to speak, Q nearly starts in again.Instead, Bond says, “We haven’t been all right for a while now.You don’t need to pretend.”

Q feels his world tilt sideways, and it’s all he can do to remain in his seat.

“Pretend,” Q echoes.“You think I’m pretending.I…To be honest, when you texted me, I thought _you_ were going to break up with me.”

“No,” Bond says.“I—”

“I’m sorry,” Q says quickly, “this isn’t about me.”

“It’s about _us_ , Q.Listen.”

“James, it’s—”

“Q.”

Q falls silent.

“I need to know,” Bond says, “if you want to leave.I need you to be honest.”

“I’m not leaving,” Q says.“You’re going blind.You’re still you, even without your sight.You’re still the person I fell in love with.”

Bond sits still in the dark.“I’m not going to get the surgery,” he says.

“All right.”

“I can’t risk losing you.”

“What do you mean?” Q asks, even though the answer hits him like a cab before he’s even finished the question.“You would go through with it if I left you.”

“There wouldn’t be anything to lose,” Bond says.

“That’s—”

Bond cuts him off and says, “I apologize.I didn’t meant to pressure you into staying.”

“I—”

“Please.”

“ _James_ ,” Q says, voice firm.

“I have you,” Bond says, “and I have my job.If I stood to lose both, it wouldn’t be a difficult decision.I take worse odds all the time.”

Q puts his head in his hands.“I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry.I didn’t mean to put you in this position.”

“I’m sorry for thinking you had to do it this way,” Q says.He wants to say that it’s going to be all right.It will, after a fashion.Sight isn’t everything, but to Bond…“I’m not going anywhere, James.We’ll get through this, one way or another.I’m not going to leave you because you’re losing your vision.”

“I want to apologize,” Bond says, “for not telling you, and for before.”

“I accept your apology.I want to apologize, too,” Q cuts in.Bond allows it.“While you were away, I was…unkind, to say the least.”

“I accept as well.”

They’re quiet for what seems like a long while, sitting roughly across from each other in the dark.

“May I,” Q says finally, “sit next to you?”

“Of course.”

Q feels his way to the couch.Bond has extended a hand through the dark, and they find each other.Q grips Bond’s fingers in his own and Bond squeezes back.Bond could break his hand, if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.They slide next to each other, and Q can feel Bond pressed up against him all on one side.

“I’m here,” Q says, rubbing his thumb over the back of Bond’s hand where their fingers have interlaced.“I haven’t been very good to you, but whatever happens, whatever you decide to do, I’m here.I’m here.”

“You think I should try the surgery.”

“I’m not a doctor of medicine, James,” Q says.“I can’t make that decision.But should you decide to do it, I’ll be there with you.”

Bond lets go of Q’s hand and snakes his arm around Q’s back to hold him close.Q leans against his shoulder, glasses riding up his forehead, and shuts his eyes.

“I’ll need you to drive me home,” Bond says quietly.

“Of course,” Q answers.“Always.”


End file.
